Dundee’s 2024/25 season was one filled with ups and downs.
Any fan will tell you supporting the Dee is like riding a rollercoaster with the past season no different.
And for the third time in the past four seasons a manager got off the rollercoaster at the end of the ride.
Tony Docherty’s time in charge at Dens Park was brought to an end last Monday.
Plenty have had their say over the decision with club chiefs citing sub-standard results.
But what do the numbers say about Dundee’s 2024/25?
Courier Sport dug out the pocket calculator and got crunching to find out.
Goals conceded
This past season at Dens Park was a story about goals. Dundee loved them. And hated them.
Loads scored but also far too many conceded.
Let’s start with the latter. Dundee let in 77 league goals across the season.
Near the end of the campaign they were on track to record the club’s worst-ever league defensive record, which stands at 80 goals conceded.
They didn’t reach that dreaded mark, though, and also conceded fewer goals than in the relegation season of 2018/19.
Dundee had easily the worst defensive record in the Premiership, conceding two goals a game on average, while they clocked up the fewest clean sheets.
They also conceded more chances than any other side with their xG conceded (a measure of quality of chances conceded) standing almost 10 goals worse off than the nearest challenger – 71.5 for Dundee with Ross County next on 62.2.
Goals scored
Dundee conceded a massive 86 goals across all competitions last season. That’s a huge number.
But they did score 87. Also a huge number.
In the Premiership, they were the league’s fourth top scorers behind the top three teams and registered their best top-flight goal tally for a massive 37 years.
Tommy Coyne’s goal-laden 1987/88 campaign was the last time Dundee managed more goals – netting 70 that term and a ridiculous 74 the season previous. Those seasons did, though, have 44 league games.
However, unlike their xG conceded number tallying with the vast number of goals conceded, Dundee’s expected goals scored was way down in 10th place in the Premiership.
According to the stats, the number of goals Dundee would normally be expected to score across the season was just 42.8. They topped their xG by a whopping 14 goals.
Aside from champions Celtic, the Premiership’s best sharpshooters were at Dens Park.
Stars
There are no prizes for guessing who leads the way in terms of attacking stats at Dens Park.
Simon Murray enjoyed a stellar return to his boyhood club with 16 goals in the Premiership, 22 in all competitions and eight assists, too.
He also picked up more league yellow cards than any other Dee with nine.
Lyall Cameron was next on the goals list with nine in the league, 14 in all competitions.
Note: All goal involvements includes goals, assists and pre-assists
An impressive 15 Dundee players got goals this season while Murray, Cameron and Scott Tiffoney were the most effective Dees in attack.
Charting goal involvements in all competitions – goals, assists and pre-assists – Murray played a part in a massive 32 goals, Cameron 25, Tiffoney on 20.
Next on the list remarkably remained Luke McCowan, despite leaving at the end of August. He played a part in 16 goals across the early League Cup stages and first three league matches of the season.
Loanees Seb Palmer-Houlden and Seun Adewumi played a part in 13 and 12 goals respectively while Fin Robertson and Ziyad Larkeche were on nine and Josh Mulligan, Jordan McGhee and Antonio Portales finished on eight.
Mulligan, meanwhile, created more ‘big chances’ than any other Dundee player across the Premiership season.
Chipping in with assists, too, were goalkeepers Jon McCracken and Trevor Carson.
Defensively Ethan Ingram had the most successful tackles per 90 minutes (2.0), Mo Sylla most interceptions per 90 (1.9) while Clark Robertson made more clearances per 90 (8.6) with Billy Koumetio next on that list (7.5).
Remarkable comparison
Dundee finished 10th, far too close to the relegation spots for the Dundee owners to retain faith in Docherty for next season.
Remarkably, though, they actually won more league games this season in finishing 10th than they did when finishing sixth the year before.
In finishing sixth they won 10 matches, finishing 10th this past season saw 11 wins.
Dundee also won just one point less this term. Finishing sixth last season, they were on 42 points at close of play. This time around they reached 41.
Part of that is the post-split fixtures. Against the top sides last season, Dundee picked up just one draw from the final five games while this season they grabbed two wins and seven points in total.
Those seven points proved crucial in keeping the Dark Blues in the division for next season.
The numbers across the board, however, show just what might have been had Docherty’s Dundee managed to keep the back door shut more often.
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